FAQ

The thing is, unless I’m working on retainer, or providing consultancy services, I don’t work on an hourly or daily rate.

I quote by project.

But I don’t want to waste your time. I’m not the cheapest, and I’ve never tried to be.

If you did want me to work on retainer it would cost you £350 per day, and my consultancy fee is £200 per hour. With the exception of pro bono work I almost never negotiate on these fees, so if price is your primary concern you may be better served looking elsewhere.

With that out of the way, I’d like to explain some of the factors which affect my quotes.

Every project I undertake invariably requires some level of research. Whether this is conducting interviews, grilling subject matter experts, or ploughing through the Internet and local library for information, research is a vital part of any project.

Amendments are also factored in: Two sets, to be exact. Don’t worry, we’ll sit down together and discuss your needs at length before I get to work, so these are usually very minor edits.

Finally, I’m often asked to arrange additional services, such as graphic design, intensive keyword research, and web development. I have a network of proven experts in a range of related fields, and if you need something I don’t personally offer I can arrange that for you.

With all the said, here is my promise:

Nobody will work harder for you than I will

I spend a lot of time developing my writing, research, interview and persuasion skills, and I’d love to work with you on your next project.

Whether it’s a single case study or a full-scale content marketing campaign, go ahead and get in touch. I can help you get the results you’ve been looking for.

You know your business better than anyone. You have the contacts… The happy customers, the product designers, the innovators.

And you need a case study, a white paper, or an autoresponder series. Or perhaps a new squeeze page, social media campaign or tender submission.

So why not do it yourself?

Well, the thing is, writing just isn’t that easy.

Perhaps a good analogy would be to consider two race car drivers: The first a skilled professional, the second an enthusiastic amateur. Even if the professional is given a lesser car to drive, there’s really no question who would win a race.

Now imagine the same race, but in poor conditions such as low visibility, driving rain, and high winds. The professional’s advantage is only increased.

Coming back to writing, it just isn’t as easy as people imagine. It takes time, effort, and numerous editing runs to produce a great piece of sales or marketing copy… even for professionals. And this time, the poor conditions are a competitive market, complex technical products, and customers overwhelmed by choice.

Your project, whatever form it takes, must keep the reader’s interest. Nobody will reach the end if it bores them.

It must be persuasive, as ultimately the reader will be asked to take action. This is true even for educational copy, which may point readers toward email signups, sales materials, or further educational content.

And it must be concise. This is actually a prerequisite for being interesting and persuasive… Nobody wants to read five pages where one would have been enough.

And as renowned author, poet, and philosopher Henry David Thoreau put it:

“Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.”

Simply put, writing in a persuasive, engaging, and concise manner is difficult, and takes both time and practice.

Just like race car driving.

And another issue people have when writing about their own products is they’re simply too close to them.

Believe it or not, this can really be a hindrance.

When you’re trying to sell in writing (or at all, for that matter) it’s important to understand that people’s perceptions are the most important thing. No doubt your product has features and benefits which set it apart from the competition, but choosing the right positioning is vital.

There’s a wonderful scene from the first season of Mad Men, where Don Draper has to figure out a way to sell Luck Strikes cigarettes in the wake of overwhelming new research proving that smoking is harmful.

He’s sitting in a meeting with his boss, Roger, and his clients, Lee Garner Sr. and Lee Garner Jr., and he asks how the cigarettes are made.

Roger:Well, gentlemen, I don’t think I have to tell you what you just witnessed here.

Lee Jr.:I think you do.

Don:Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing is OK. You are OK.

Lee Sr.:It’s toasted. [Smiles]I get it.

Now obviously I’m not suggesting you start selling poisonous products and pass them off as something else.

But this scene really illustrates the point: The tobacco company were too close to their product to realise they could differentiate themselves.

I write for a lot of high-tech and cyber security companies, and one of the biggest issues is always customer understanding. Most people simply don’t understand the products, which makes selling based on actual features difficult.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t do it – you should – but you can’t only do it.

On the one hand, your educational content must explain your products in a way that anybody can understand, and which holds readers’ interest while they learn.

On the other, your marketing materials must sell in a way that doesn’t rely on a full and intricate understanding of how and why your products work better than the competition.

I’m skilled and experienced in both mediums, and I specialise in this combination of writing.

Let me help you.

And yes, I love Mad Men. I’m a copywriter, and it’s a show about copywriters. Go figure.

After all, who wants to work with someone who makes their life difficult?

With that in mind, I’m going to be as clear as possible about how I work, and what you can expect if you decide to work with me.

Usually, after contact is made, projects look like this:

1) Brief discussion of needs

2) Quote

3) Thorough discussion of needs

4) Fact finding/research

5) Write & submit

6) Amendments

Simple enough, right?

The first two steps can usually be completed very quickly. A simple phone call or short email exchange is enough for me to base a quote on, and once that’s agreed we can press on with step three.

At this point, I’ll be looking for a more detailed understanding of your requirements.

If you have a formal specification that’s great, but don’t panic if not. We’ll discuss and agree your requirements before moving on, and I can make recommendations if desirable.

This is the time to really hammer out precisely what you need from me. Although there will be the opportunity for revisions once I’ve submitted your project, we won’t be talking about complete overhauls.

Long story short: We’ll make sure we agree on exactly what you need, so there are no nasty surprises for either of us later on.

We’ll also agree precisely when I will start working on your project, and when you can expect to see results.

Step four is where the fun really starts.

If I’ll be writing a case study, this would likely be a three-way teleconference between myself, a representative from your company, and your delighted client. I’d be looking to find out precisely how you solved their problems, improved their processes, and generally made their lives better.

If it’s educational writing you’re after, such as an e-book, autoresponder series, white paper or article, this stage will usually be a bit more involved. I’ll be asking you for every scrap of information you can get your hands on, from product specs and sales material to instruction manuals, mission statements and customer reviews.

The same goes for sales pieces, such as landing pages, product pages, and email content. You’d be amazed how much information can be distilled into a concise, compelling sales message.

And I’ll also conduct my own research. I’ll interview your product champions, engineers, and visionaries. I’ll look at your competitors, alternative solutions, and anything else I can find that helps me to understand why your products and services are the best.

Anything I can do to better understand your business, I will. Collecting all this information can sometimes take a bit of time, but trust me.

More is more.

Once all this is complete, the final stages are simple. I complete your project, and submit it to you by the agreed date.

Our agreed project cost includes two sets of revisions, to ensure you get precisely what you need from me. These revisions will be discussed, agreed and completed within 30 days of the initial submission, so you won’t be left twiddling your thumbs and wondering what I’m up to.

The following is taken directly from my e-book B2B Content Marketing 101: Becoming Your Customer’s Trusted Advisor. To obtain a full copy of the e-book free of charge, click here.

Content marketing is the future.

A 2014 study by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) found that 93% of B2B marketers are now using content marketing as part of their strategy. 73% of those marketers are producing more content than they did a year ago.

A very accurate description, but it’s a bit ‘management speak’ for my liking.

The idea is that you provide valuable information, or content, to your customers for free. By doing so you forge an ongoing relationship that’s beneficial to everyone. You could give them white papers or case studies, e-books, videos, research reports, podcasts.. the list goes on.

Rather than getting hung up on specifics, I prefer to define content marketing like this:

Let’s look at some of the traits that a trusted advisor might have. They would:

1) Have a personal relationship with you

2) Provide something of value

3) Be an expert in their field

4) Be a leader in their field

5) Be likeable

6) Provide help without asking anything in return

And here’s something a trusted advisor definitely wouldn’t be:

7) A sleazy salesman

So how achievable is this ‘trusted advisor’ status? To answer that, let’s take a look at an excellent example of content marketing in practice – Cisco’s Internet of Everything.

In case you didn’t already know, Cisco are a huge multinational corporation that provide software and hardware solutions. Who do they provide them to? Well… everyone from home users to Governments and other multinational corporations.

To give you an idea of their size, in the final quarter of the 2013/14 financial year, Cisco took over $12bn in global revenue. Yes, that’s over $12,000,000,000 in a 3 month period, which amounted to 6% year-on- year growth.

The Internet of Everything is a website that Cisco have built to share their content with new and existing customers. Within the site you can find white papers, case studies (both written and video), news articles, blog posts, personal bios for senior staff, and all sorts of other useful and interesting stuff.

So what are Cisco doing well?

They provide a wide variety of media content

Cisco’s customer base is vast, which makes it difficult for them to know what types of content will be well received. The solution? Produce content in dozens of different ways and see what works.

This tactic also adds credibility to the ‘newsroom’ look that they’ve gone for. Traditional news comes to us in many forms, including video, text, audio and more. Cisco have done a great job of making their site look and feel like a mecca for business and technology news. In fact, that’s exactly what it is.

They tell stories and name names

People love stories. Think about the evergreen popularity of books, newspapers, films and theatre – Whether it be real world events or works of fiction, nearly everyone likes an interesting story.

Glance through the Internet of Everything and you’ll find case studies, newscasts and reports on all sorts of events. There are good news stories, bad news stories and everything in between.

Not only that, the stories have characters. Real people. Cisco go out of their way to introduce us to real people. Why? Because without actual, relatable characters, stories are boring.

We can become emotionally involved in a story – even something as business-like as a case study – so long as we relate to the characters.

Present a potential customer with a spec sheet for your latest product and they probably won’t even read it to the end.

Now present them with a case study – One where the ‘hero’ has a problem very similar to their own. By working with your company they were able to solve the problem and save the day. If you’ve done a good job of making the story both interesting and informative, they’ll be excited at the prospect of working with you.

They give away valuable content for free

This is important. Some of the content on the Internet of Everything could be charged for. People need and want information like this, and they’d be willing to pay for it.

But Cisco don’t ask for money. In fact, they don’t ask for anything.

If you spend some time browsing the Internet of Everything, and I suggest that you do, you’ll find that every so often one of Cisco’s products is mentioned. Perhaps there’s an article on solving certain networking issues, with a gentle reminder that Cisco offer troubleshooting and repairs as a service. There are probably a few links to case studies demonstrating how Cisco solved similar problems for other companies.

Notice what you don’t find? Long, sleazy sales pitches. That’s because the reader already knows that Cisco are the experts, so they’re the obvious choice if she needs that kind of service.

They demonstrate their authority rather than claiming it

How many times have you seen a company claim to be experts in their field?

Did you take their word for it? Of course not!

I imagine you checked out their website, looked up some reviews, and generally did your best to make sure it true. If you weren’t convinced, you probably went somewhere else.

This sort of scepticism is a problem for businesses – Most people simply will not take their word for anything without doing some research.

But now let’s think about Cisco. They certainly want to be known as the experts in their field, but they’re not asking us to take their word for it. By providing all this content for free, including examples of their past successes, Cisco demonstrate their authority – they don’t just claim it.

This puts us at ease, because we know right away that we’re in good hands.

It’s equally important to look at what Cisco don’t do –

Scream their sales message

Or in fact…

Ask for anything in return

I’ve touched on this already, but it really is important. Customers are not stupid, and they will see through thinly disguised sales pitches. If at this point you’re trying to imagine a way of distilling your sales catalogue into ‘information’ form, I’m afraid you’ve missed the point.

Before we move on, let’s take a final look at our list of ‘trusted advisor’ characteristics, and see how Cisco are doing.

1) Personal relationships – We’ve got loads of stories about real people and real events. Considering that we’re talking about a vast international corporation here, I’d say that we have a surprisingly personal relationship on our hands.

2) Providing something of value – Let’s be fair here, Cisco are providing nothing but value. If you’re after business and technology news and solutions, you’ve come to the right place.

3) An expert in their field – I don’t think anyone would question this. The quality and sheer quantity of information provided is outstanding.

4) A leader in their field – There’s a distinction between an expert and a leader, but Cisco are clearly both. Check out their Corporate Overview document and you’ll find that they’re the overwhelming market leaders in the global networking industry. They’re also making great strides in teleconferencing server technology. Long story short – Cisco are leading the way.

5) Likeable – It’s difficult not to be grateful for this resource, particularly when we’ve been introduced to the real people who provide it. Again, Cisco are a huge corporation which makes it difficult to be genuinely likeable, but I’d say they’re doing a damn fine job.

6) Providing help without asking anything in return – There are no thinly disguised sales pitches here. In fact, Cisco seem to be on a mission to prove that the old adage “If don’t ask, you don’t get” is simply not true in the content marketing business.

And it goes without saying that Cisco don’t commit the cardinal sin of content marketing –

7) Being a sleazy salesman – I won’t flog a dead horse. They don’t do it, and neither should you. ‘nuff said.

For the next chapter on how content marketing works in practice, and indeed for the full e-book, click here.

First off, it has nothing to do with copyrights, patents, or trademarks. If you’re looking for any of those things, I’m afraid I really can’t help you.

The standard definition of copywriting is that it’s “like a salesman in print”, but I’ve never gotten along with that analogy.

It seems somehow too restrictive.

Where traditional copywritten pieces (direct mail, advertisements, billboards, and the like) are designed to sell a specific product, these days a subtler message is often needed.

The Internet opens up so much choice that a single letter or advert will generally be insufficient to convince a prospect to part with more than a few hours’ worth of pay.

And if you’ve spent any time looking around my site, you’ll notice I don’t work with small-time products. My clients are almost exclusively large tech companies, who sell predominantly to other businesses (B2B).

But all this is not to say that “sales writing” is a waste of time. In fact quite the opposite is true.

It’s just not all that’s needed.

And that’s why I prefer a wider definition, which includes all the facets of quality, modern copywriting:

“Persuasive, Engaging, Educational”

Persuade – Even when you’re not selling, you must bring the reader round to your way of thinking.

Engage – If it’s boring, nobody will read it. Nobody.

Educate – Perhaps the most important word in the tech industry. You can’t sell a product if nobody understands it.

Consider a white paper, or a case study.

Clearly these are not “sales” pieces, but they must still convince your reader. In essence, you’re selling your expertise, your trustworthiness, and your ability to help them.

The same goes for blog posts, research articles, emails and autoresponders, website content… even tender documents.

If you like, copywriting is the ability to sell… even when you aren’t selling.

The real secret is to persuade, engage, and educate your prospects… and then help them to buy.

I’ve written about pretty much everything in my lifetime. As a child I enjoyed creative writing more than anything else at school.

In my teenage years I wrote more journal entries than was probably healthy.

As a young man I started writing non-fiction on a variety of largely unlinked subjects that were interesting only to me.

At college I studied Business, Economics and Politics, which involved – you guessed it – lots of writing. Nothing changed significantly in the three years I spent gaining my business management B.Sc. from the University of Surrey. They loved essays too.

In the following years I worked variously as a data analyst and project manager in the fields of Adult Social Care, Procurement, Finance, and IT. My combined love of writing and tech led me to write all sorts of things, including:

Project Documentation

Tender Documents – Invitations to Tender (ITTs) & Tender Responses. (I also designed the tender evaluation model used throughout Hampshire County Council, and evaluated more tender submissions than I care to remember)

Social Media Campaigns

Bids and Proposals

Copy for over a dozen websites, including Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

And all manner of reports, business cases, newsletters and whatever else needed writing.

Scintillating stuff, I know.

Technology was something I came to from an altogether different angle.

One day, when I was young and minding my own business, my father came home with the most amazing thing I’d ever seen: Our first computer.

Now I feel I should give the whole story, so here it is. This computer had actually belonged to his employer, but one night when he was working late he accidentally spilled beer over the keyboard. Unperturbed, he found someone to do the necessary repair job, and paid for it himself.

It looked something like this:

Oh yes, it was a laptop.

It ran Windows 3.1, and was good for little more than playing Minesweeper or Tetris. It also looked a bit like a Fisher Price kiddies toy.

Nonetheless, it was my portal into the magical world of technology.

I won’t bore you further with the details, but as my life went on I’d continue to be fascinated by tech – Everything from mobile phones and e-readers to servers, programming languages, and office software.

Over the past 5 years I’ve spent well over a full day (yes, 24 hours) discussing Microsoft Excel, and its various competitors, with my Father.

Dad spent most of his career working as an Accountant, and was lucky enough to be one of the first users of Visicalc – The very first electronic spreadsheet.

You can imagine how quickly everyone else leaves the room when we get started.

In my spare time I like to write about my interests – usually technology, but also including personal development, diet, exercise, sleep, and learning. At one point, well before I’d had any formal writing training, I created a whole website devoted to the selection and use of office software.

Although not in my hands, the site is still going, and if you’re as much of a geek as I am you can still find an old article I wrote about using the VLOOKUP function in Microsoft Excel.

So.. Copywriting?

Some time ago I realised that, though I enjoyed the work I was doing, I’d much rather be working for myself.

Not only would that mean I could spend more of my time doing what I really enjoyed – Writing, learning about tech, and working directly with business clients – it would also give me the freedom to do things my own way.

Oh, and cut out 2-3 hours of commuting each day.

So I quit my job. I undertook every copywriting course I could find, studied every piece of direct mail that came through my letterbox, and pored over every assignment I could get my hands on.

After years of education and increasingly responsible jobs, I’d finally found what I wanted to do. And I was good at it.

So without further ado…

My name is Pete Hugh, and I help tech companies attract more clients and grow their business.

For more info on how I do that, check out my About Me page, or keep reading my blog.